


Poolside

by dilaudiddreams



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: (she's alive), (tumblr followers hi), Age Difference between adults (15 years), Angst, Closeted Character, Daddy Issues, Daddy Kink, Dom/sub Play, Drug Use, Hotch is cheating on his wife, Infidelity, Lesbian Emily Prentiss, Lesbian Penelope Garcia, Love Triangles, M/M, Obsession, Poolboy Spencer, Rough Sex, S&M, Schizophrenia, Size Kink, Smut, Spencer is an up-and-coming model, Sub Spencer Reid, Team as Family, Threesome - M/M/M, and subsequently, lots of man pain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:20:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25342360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilaudiddreams/pseuds/dilaudiddreams
Summary: In the summer of 2018, miserable, deeply-closeted multi-millionaire Aaron Hotchner hires a few new employees to assist in the upkeep of his estate.Such a routine change in the help means nothing, of course, until twenty-three year-old aspiring model Spencer Reid moves into the pool house.(A story of an unconventional summer fling.)[DISCONTINUED]
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Aaron Hotchner/Haley Hotchner, Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid
Comments: 29
Kudos: 123





	1. closure (prolouge)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everyone! 
> 
> This was an idea I had a while back that I shared on a blog of mine and bounced around until it was fully fleshed out. I'm psyched to share this with you all, because I've been talking about writing it for several weeks, and the ideas have finally come to life!  
> I hope you'll find the plot line as interesting as I do :)  
> Thank you to everyone who contributed ideas/concepts to this, and, as always, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy it!

_Winter of 2019_

That summer was the hottest summer Aaron can remember, and he remembers it well. 

When he’s alone in the house, and he’s done a line or two and found himself on his back, staring up at his marble ceiling, he swears he can almost taste Spencer Reid at the back of his mouth.

 _Sweet, sweet Spencer Reid._

He rides his luxurious, artificial dopamine rush—false happiness he’s bought himself in dire absence of the real thing—all the way back to July. ( _Back to Heaven_.) The coke brings back every bit of that sticky, indulgent summer—the salt-blown hair and sun-kissed skin. The elegant, painted toes dipped in the sparkling pool water (when the sun had begun to set and the bitter heat of the day finally signaled its surrender). The taste of chlorine on Spencer’s tender, young flesh. Aaron’s bed sheets tangled up with sweat and cum and long, thin legs. Strawberry lipgloss. That melodic, whining voice ( _daddy, daddy, I didn’t mean it_ ). _God, that voice_. For just a moment, the warmth flows throughout him, and Aaron can forget where (and _when_ ) he is. 

When the fleeting high subsides, though, the winter always creeps back in. 

The leaves are no less dead than they had been before the coke, and Aaron is no less alone.

* * *

Living alone in extravagant wealth is misery, no matter what anyone may say.

Aaron feels dirty and sinful hearing his footsteps echo down the ivory front staircase. He can’t stand the size of the kitchen, or the yards of space beside him in his bed. He can’t stand to be inside the house at _all_ , really, surrounded by nothing but emptiness and the mechanical hum of his various overpriced appliances, so he spends the majority of his time roaming the estate.

Every day, he visits the pool house for a few moments. 

He runs his hands over the now-bare mattress where Spencer Reid had spread his legs for him so many times. He stands in the small kitchen where he’d watched Emily Prentiss get drunk on mimosas on that fateful day off. He wonders, with faint amazement, how so much love and light had been found here in a single summer when he’d yet to find any of it at the Manor, even after so many years. 

* * *

The hardest part of saying goodbye to Spencer is that Aaron had never really had a chance to _say goodbye_ to Spencer.

After two miserable months of visiting the pool house daily and ruminating what might have been, Aaron decides that he needs closure.

Closure, _real_ closure - the proper goodbye that he should have had at the end of that summer.

He decides to write a letter.

_What to say to someone like Spencer?_

_What to say to a person who made the inherent guilt and emptiness of excessive wealth into something homey and sacred? What to say to a person who, with a single touch of his hand, could melt someone as stoic and unfeeling as Aaron like candle wax?_

_What to say to a man who had held the extravagant world of money and power between his slender fingertips, and had thrown it to the wind like a slip of unwanted paper?_

He writes with a purple pen on some of Haley’s old stationary.

_My Spencer:_

_I was delighted to hear of your engagement, and I do mean that honestly._

_I’ve been caught up in you for so long, and the relief of finality is much needed._

_Do you think I could see you one last time?_

_I honestly have no intentions with you, and you can even tell him I wrote you this letter, if you’d like. He has nothing to fear._

_I just want to see your face one last time, and to say goodbye to you, since I never got the chance._

_Please._

_Love always,_

_Aaron._

Spencer writes back the following week.

_Aaron—_

_If you’d like to say a final goodbye, meet me on November 18th at 3 pm in the bookstore cafe on 7th street. (Where you kissed me that first time on June 7th.)_

_I’ve wondered how your life has been, and I’m interested to know how Jack is doing these days._

_\- Spencer_

_I, too,_ Aaron thinks to himself, as bitter as a cracked pill between the teeth of a man in withdrawal, _would be interested to know how Jack is doing these days._

* * *

The bookstore is downtown.

It has high wooden rafters and floor-to-ceiling storefront windows, through which Aaron can see the torrential downpour that is so exceedingly rare for Southern California. 

Spencer had always talked about how he liked the rain, and how much he wished there’d been more of it “ _out here_.” 

_It almost never rained in Vegas,_ he’d said a couple of times. _It’s actually the driest place in the entirety of North America. Only about one day out of every fourteen is overcast, and it only rains more than half an inch about one out of every twenty-six days._

(Aaron misses that sort of thing—the excessive flow of obscure information.)

Spencer enters the building right at the allotted time—not a moment sooner or later than 3:00 pm sharp, just as Aaron had known he would. 

He’s just as beautiful as he had been that summer.

He’s cut his hair. He’s wearing a black sweater with a white button-up shirt underneath. He looks tired—the circles beneath his eyes are exaggerated ( _exhaustion? Poor health? Something else?)_ , and the sun-tanned glow he’d carried with him throughout the summer has faded, but he’s still every bit as breath-taking as Aaron remembers.

Aaron had arrived early, knowing Spencer is almost obsessively punctual, and he’d sat himself down at the table in front of the window where he’d first kissed Spencer on June seventh. He’d ordered Spencer’s favorite latte and set it down in front of the chair opposite his own.

As much as he hates to admit it, Spencer gives Aaron butterflies like he hasn’t felt since childhood, and he’s hurt when the younger man takes the seat across from him without smiling or greeting him.

“Spencer,” Aaron says. 

“You remembered my address,” Spencer answers plainly, staring into his latte. “...And my...coffee order.”

Aaron isn’t quite sure how to tell him that he remembers _everything_ , because he’d gluttonously drunk up every last bit of Spencer Reid that summer and held it all deep inside for safekeeping. To Aaron, Spencer Reid is everything there ever was and everything there ever would be, and every little bit of him, no matter how insignificant, was as precious as Haley’s emeralds.

 _This was a mistake_ , Aaron realizes, feeling his desperate obsession beginning to rebuild itself within him. He realizes (far too late) that he can never _not_ love Spencer—there would be no goodbye, no _closure_ , because this was something that could never be closed. Spencer Reid had crept into Aaron’s veins that summer, and he would circulate through his heart for the rest of his life. 

Unfortunately, there is no good way to say this to a twenty-four year-old who has gone and engaged himself to someone else, so Aaron simply doesn’t say it. “My memory is in alright condition,” he jokes instead. “I’m not as old as you think.” 

Spencer smiles.

 _Jesus, that perfect, perfect smile_. 

_I’d forgotten how beautiful you really are._

Spencer looks Aaron in the face, which feels roughly akin to being punched in the stomach. “How’s...how’s Jack doing?”

“He’s doing well, thank you.” Aaron doesn’t mention that he hasn’t seen Jack in weeks. “He started Kindergarten this fall.”

Spencer smiles again, but this time, it’s sad, as if to cover an onslaught of tears. “Oh, my gosh. They grow up fast, huh?”

“Tell me about it.”

Spencer looks down into his latte again and bites at his lower lip. In another life, Aaron would reach across the table and caress his cheek. 

He’d tell him not to bite himself.

_I_ _t really is a terrible habit._

“And you?” Aaron asks. “How are you? How’s your…?”

_Fianc_ _é._

Spencer shrugs. “We’re doing well, thank you. Everything is fine.”

“I saw you had a shoot with Dior? Congratulations on that.” Aaron knows that modeling isn’t what Spencer wants with his life, and that he probably feels digging his feet more firmly into the hated career is not worth celebrating, but Aaron has always thought that any professional success is a success that deserves acknowledgement.

 _Because you’re a workaholic_ , the distant memory of Haley whispers at the back of his mind. 

“You saw that?” Spencer asks, frowning.

 _Shit_.

Aaron has kept tabs on Spencer since the day he left. He collects every magazine he’s featured in, no matter how obscure, and dog-ears Spencer’s pages just to flip back through them and drink in the once-familiar sight of his soft hair and his beautiful, plump lips. 

After all, Spencer is _everything there ever was and everything there ever would be—_ Aaron has never stopped craving him in any way he can get him, even as nothing but droplets of ink beneath the glossy coating of a fashion magazine. 

“It was in my orbit,” Aaron lies. “I needed a new suit.”

“What did you decide on?” Spencer asks. 

He doesn’t care. 

_Neither_ of them do, but Aaron is willing to feed into the small talk angle, lest he should veer off-course and tell Spencer what he’s thinking. “Armani,” he says. 

Spencer nods and looks out the window at the rain falling hard against the large, glass pane. The lights of the traffic on the street are blurred, as though the outside world were an oil painting. 

It had never rained like this over the summer.

As he faces the window, Aaron notes to himself that Spencer seems especially gaunt. He’d always been sharp around the edges, but never quite to such an alarming extent.

_That is, not except for..._

“Are you sick again, Spencer?” Aaron blurts out before he can stop himself. 

It’s not wise, God knows—he shouldn’t let himself become entangled once again in the angst of Spencer Reid’s life when he _knows_ his Summer Baby will be going home to someone else in a matter of minutes—but he can’t just disregard such a thing as his health. He cares deeply about Spencer, and he always will, regardless of whether or not he wants to.

Spencer purses his lips. “I’m…alright. I’m alive. Not worried that’s going to change.”

“I _knew_ it. Spencer, you’re too thin.” 

“Aaron, it’s alright.”

Aaron reaches out to touch Spencer’s face (just to feel for himself the valley beneath his harsh, protruding cheekbone, thinking that if he can just _touch_ this faded whisper of his glowing, wanton Summer Baby, it will somehow set in that _this is reality_ ), but Spencer pulls away. 

Aaron scowls. “It’s not _alright._ You need surgery, Spencer. I can help you.”

Spencer shakes his head. “No, thank you. We don’t want help. We can - we’re not poor anymore. We can care for ourselves.”

The _‘we’_ hits Aaron in the gut.

_We can care for ourselves._

This—this simple, plainly-spoken reminder that there is a new union of which Spencer is a part and which is entirely separate from Aaron (in which he is an unwanted outsider, actually)—was exactly what Aaron had come looking for when he’d written that letter. _This very moment_ was the moment he’d been tirelessly searching for in every breath he’d taken since he found the pile of Spencer’s clothes on the floor of the poolhouse. 

This was his moment of closure.

 _He’d needed this, hadn’t he?_

Yes; he’d needed it desperately.

Somehow, though, there’s no relief in it; as much as he’d needed it, he hadn’t _wanted_ it one bit.

It feels as though a great weight has been lifted from Aaron’s shoulders and dropped promptly onto his chest.

 _We can care for ourselves_.

In this moment, Aaron’s continuous uncertainty becomes a terrible, bitter certainty. His ever-present _what-if_ shatters into a lonely, empty, merciless grief. 

_We can care for ourselves_.

In this moment, there is nothing left.

Aaron turns away in an attempt to hide the tears welling up in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Spencer whispers. He extends a thin, graceful hand to Aaron from across the table. (Aaron had always loved Spencer’s hands—they were so small and always so _cold_ , yet he always found unspeakable warmth in holding them.)

He returns the gesture with little enthusiasm, taking Spencer’s lithe hand in his own and raising his fingers to his lips. He kisses each of Spencer’s knuckles one-by-one, silently willing a loving goodbye into the hand he’d foolishly denied himself the pleasure of holding for the rest of his life. 

“Is there any chance?” Aaron asks, barely above a whimper. He hates the words as they leave his lips, even with the knowledge that he’d stifled them as long as he humanly could, because this was _not what he’d come here for_. Now, he’s no longer seeking closure– he’s prying everything back open with a shoehorn just to hear Spencer entertain his hypothetical.

No one but Spencer could ever do this to a man like Aaron.

No one but his Summer Baby could ever bring him crashing down in such a pathetic plume of misery (for all the world to see, no less) with a single touch of his hand. 

Spencer shakes his head. “I have real roots now. I can’t just dig them up and…” he trails off. He’s retreated back into his head. (Aaron only wishes he could _begin_ to understand what Spencer’s thinking sounds like. Then, maybe, he wouldn’t have put the two of them into this situation.)

“But if you _didn’t_ ,” Aaron presses on with reckless abandon, “what would you do? If you had no one back up North, if - if no one was waiting for you, and I asked you to come to the Ritz with me just for the weekend, just for a few days of the way things used to be, and I...I told you I could help you with your medical expenses, and I could bring you to see Jack, what would you say?” 

He’s not sure why he asks. 

Does it honestly matter _why_ Spencer denies him, so long as he is indeed firmly denying him? Does it _matter_ whether Spencer has lingering traces of affection for Aaron that he’ll have to spend the rest of his life smothering? Is it petty to wonder such things?

_Yes. The answer to all of that is yes._

Spencer recoils as though he’s been hit, drawing his hand back to his chest. “Are you...asking me to sleep with you for _money_?”

“ _No!_ God, no, I’m not. I just want to _know_. If you had no one else, would you...give me another chance?”

_Do I still matter to you? Is it only him that holds you back, or have you lost every bit of the love you had for me that summer?_

_If there were no him, if there were no apartment up North with a yellow kitchen and a flower box in the bedroom window, would you allow me to reach across the table and touch your face?_

_Could I kiss you here today in your sweater, with the rain beating against the front window, just as I kissed you here months ago when your skin was tanned and the sun was high and bright in the sky and you faintly smelled of chlorine and perfume?_

_If there were no Him, could there be an Us?_

Spencer swallows. “Does that matter, Aaron?”

“Yes. _Please,_ Spencer. Just a...yes or a no.” 

Spencer stares up at the bookcase along the upper half of the wall opposite him, tears bubbling up in his eyes. “I don’t think you’re going to be satisfied regardless of what I say. You never are.”

“ _Spencer.”_

(Only Spencer could do this to him.)

(Only Spencer could make him cry and plead for a single word that would, in the grand scheme of things, mean nothing.)

“Okay,” Spencer whispers. “Okay, fine. Yes. Maybe, in...in another life, _maybe_ . But this is _not_ another life, okay? It’s this one. Summer is over. I’m engaged. I can’t just do these things, even if I wished I could.”

Aaron buries his face in his hands and attempts to scrub his tears away, lest they should fall and reveal to Spencer ( _who has moved on, who is engaged with an apartment with yellow walls and a flower box_ ), just how much Aaron has been leaning on the shoulders of these hypotheticals.

“You didn’t bring me here to say goodbye,” Spencer notes, and that’s not exactly true—Aaron really _hadn’t_ wanted anything more than a goodbye until he’d actually laid eyes on Spencer. 

(He could never resist his Summer Baby.) 

Spencer stands, pushing his chair out behind him unceremoniously. “This was a mistake, Aaron. I’m sorry I came, I...I’ve always hated seeing you upset. I have to get home.” 

Aaron grabs his wrist. “No. Wait, Spencer. I _do_ want to say goodbye. I swear to you.”

Spencer looks tearfully down at him. “Say it, then.”

Aaron takes a shaky breath and looks directly into Spencer’s big, beautiful brown eyes. “Goodbye, Spencer. Letting you go was the biggest mistake of my life.” 

_I love you._

Spencer purses his lips and nods. “Goodbye, Aaron.”

Slowly, savoring every last moment of contact with the (now unrequited) love of his life, Aaron releases his grip on Spencer’s wrist. _I’ll never touch him again_ , he thinks mournfully.

Much to Aaron’s amazement, Spencer leans down and places a kiss in the center of his forehead. 

“You didn’t let me go,” he whispers. “It was a choice I made all on my own.”

With that, he turns and walks toward the door, leaving Aaron alone to wallow in his heartbreak and soak in his last glimpses of Spencer Reid through the store’s front window.

Spencer doesn’t have an umbrella, and when a cab stops for him after a moment (Spencer is unthreatening and visibly upper-middle class - it’s never taken him long to get cabs), he has to quickly dart out from under the shelter of the storefront to dodge the rain.

He slams the car door shut, and the driver promptly pulls onto the street and turns left.

Aaron never sees Spencer Reid again. 


	2. blistering heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We begin where it all began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge my lovely friend and beta reader, user rxseinbloom. she makes everything i do so much better. give some love 💖

_Summer 2018_

_8 months earlier_

The day Spencer arrives on the Hotchner estate—a larger, greener piece of land than Spencer had ever seen during the entire course of his Vegasian childhood—the family seem to be planning some sort of elegant, extravagant party. 

The air of festivity floats about the place and gives every simple red brick lining the path up to the Manor its own allure. Even the glare of the sun lessens upon entering the grounds—it’s as though the world itself bows before the desires of the wealthy, and will postpone its natural duties when they expect a pleasant day.

The pretty blonde woman who had conducted Spencer’s interview— _JJ_ , he remembers, Hotchner’s head of staff—lets him onto the grounds graciously, sends a bellhop away with his bags, and tells him that the Hotchners are planning a birthday party for _Jack_.

“I am _so_ glad you’re here, Spence,” she says, power-walking so aggressively that even Spencer, in all of his long-legged glory, has trouble keeping up with her. He’s going to tell her that no one calls him Spence (in fact, no one in the entire history of the world has _ever_ called him Spence, and he would _strongly_ prefer to keep it that way), but she appears to be so tense and troubled that he doesn’t want to increase her burden with such a small matter. “Mrs. Hotchner is going to be _so_ relieved. She’s _very_ stressed about having the pool in good condition for the party.” 

“Can I ask, um—who is Jack, exactly?” Spencer asks, tripping over the lining of the bricks as he ambles along after JJ like a duckling. (He’s genuinely impressed with her ability to walk the path in stilettos.)

“He’s Mr. Hotchner’s will-be-five-year-old,” JJ calls back to him. “Let’s get you set up.”

 _Five years old,_ Spencer marvels, taking in the silk streamers and intricate, pastel-colored flower arches that decorate the gardens surrounding the entryway.

* * *

The pool house is more comfortable than Spencer had expected. 

It’s roomy, filled with windows, and has an airy bedroom separate from the main living area. All in all, it’s nicer than the majority of apartments he’s lived in, and he would truly be content to stay here forever.

“Sorry, the air conditioning is broken right now, but it should be fixed soon. You can use this kitchen spot right here,” JJ explains, “and also the bar. You can—wait, how old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Great. So, you can help yourself to anything from the bar, as long as you’re still doing your job and doing it well. Emily will just replace it. Doesn’t make a dent in the budget. Haley doesn’t care, and I kind of doubt you’ll ever run into Aaron? He doesn’t mingle much, I’m really the only one who sees him on the regular.”

Spencer nods. 

“The bedroom and the back bathroom are yours.” JJ continues. “Nobody else will use those. This front area, with the kitchen and the half bath, it’s—you can totally use it, but you have to keep it clean and vacate it when Haley is entertaining. So, for the party tomorrow, you have to stay in your room or hang out somewhere else for a couple of hours.”

Spencer nods again. He fiddles uncomfortably with the strap of his satchel. 

“We used to hang out here all the time,” JJ admits. “Um, for the free booze, you know. It’s really a great spot.”

Spencer doesn’t ask who _we_ is, or if he’s intruding on something by being here, because he’s not sure he wants to hear the answer. “Thank you so much, JJ.”

She beams. “Of course. That’s what I’m here for! I pinned my number to the fridge. You’re welcome to text me with any questions. Tomorrow, I’m going to be here around 10 AM to show you around and introduce you to your new co-workers, if that’s okay with you.”

“That sounds great.”

“Fantastic. So, if you could just give the pool one quick clean this afternoon, that’d be great, but the rest of the night is yours to unpack and decompress and all that good stuff. Your bags should be here soon.”

Spencer thanks her again, and she hurriedly shakes his hand and rushes away.

As JJ leaves, she lowers her clipboard to her side and pulls out her iPhone to make a call.

He feels guilty for it, because she’s been nothing but an angel to him, but Spencer can’t help but wonder how she can _possibly_ do all of this—tire herself out this way—for the satisfaction of a boy who won’t even _remember_ the party she’s so strenuously planning.

* * *

Spencer cleans the pool, as requested. 

It takes about two hours, which leaves him lying on his back on the pool deck with his feet dangling in the water and the sun beating down on his face for approximately three. 

Spencer’s about to fall asleep this way, fantasizing about being a lizard sunning himself on some rock in the desert, when someone calls out to him from a ways away.

He sits bold upright and scrambles to his feet in an attempt to appear busy. The sudden exposure to the pool deck burns the bottoms of his feet, and the water that drips from his calves nearly sizzles against the hot cement. 

“Are you Spencer Reid?” A tall, well-built man in sunglasses asks, walking carelessly up to the fence surrounding the pool.

Spencer’s heart hammers. “Yes, sir. Sorry, I was…”

The man raises his hands as if to show that he’s unarmed. “Relax, man. I’m not with Hotch. Just wanted to come check you out.”

( _Hotch_ , Spencer thinks, slightly amused.)

“What are you doing down here, then?” Spencer asks. “And, furthermore, what do you mean, _check me out?_ ”

Spencer’s mysterious, attractive visitor leans on the fence. “You’re new. You’re camping out in our old partyhouse. Just wanted to see what your deal is. I mean, whether you’re cool.” 

Spencer crosses his arms. Despite the overwhelming practical need to remain professional, he can’t help but _admire_ this intrusive stranger; the sweat dripping into the divots of his collarbones and the way his muscular arms strain ever-so-slightly as he leans over the fence take Spencer’s mind almost immediately to an unprofessional place. 

Spencer bites his lip. “I wouldn’t necessarily say that I’m _cool._ Unless you really know me, I suppose, and you take me for what I am.”

The stranger takes his sunglasses off. “Well, Spencer Reid,” he says, flashing Spencer a smile that washes away everything intimidating about him, “I’d like to know you.”

His name is Derek Morgan.

He hails from Chicago, and, much like Spencer, he wound up in Los Angeles as a result of a series of events he prefers not to disclose to perfect strangers.

He’s thirty-two years old. He’s Hotchner’s head of security. His college degree is in criminal justice, and he tells Spencer that he hopes to return to it someday, because he doesn’t feel that protecting the Hotchners is _fulfilling_. 

“You go into that field,” he says, sitting next to Spencer on the edge of the pool with his cargo pants rolled up to his knees and his feet dangling in the water, “into _CJ_ , I mean, wanting to help people. I’m not helping anybody here. I’m protecting rich folks’ things.”

Spencer gently kicks him under the water. “I mean, you’re helping Aaron and Haley, right? And...Jack?”

Derek’s expression darkens. “Yeah,” he mutters, looking down at where Spencer’s painted toes meet his own ankle. “Yeah. I am.” 

“...Some people don’t deserve the help they get, kid. Some people get ahead and stay that way all because they’re selfish bastards. And Jack…” Derek trails off and shakes his head. “Poor kid doesn’t stand a _chance_ at being normal, does he?”

It’s an ominous, out-of-the-blue statement, and Spencer isn’t quite sure how to respond to something so profound from the lips of a stranger. He’d only been trying to cheer Derek up, after all. “I suppose not,” he mutters, looking across the lawn at the pastel-colored arches adorning the garden. 

Derek shakes his head. “Sorry,” he says. “That was out of line. Just—nothing makes you quite as jaded as carrying around a dog in a three-thousand dollar handbag, huh?” 

Spencer giggles and looks down at Derek’s hands.

Even the way he’s splayed his fingers on the pool deck manages to lead Spencer astray. 

He wants those fingers in his mouth. 

_In other places._

“Hey, uh, are you busy?” Spencer blurts.

Derek looks up at him. “Nah. Not right now. Why?”

“Would you want to...come in for a drink, or something? They let me use the little bar.”

Far too slowly, Derek drops the forlorn shadow that had crossed his face at the mention of Jack and breaks into a grin that warms Spencer to the core. “Breaks my heart to say this, but I’m on call right now.” He pats his holster. “Gotta keep a clear head.”

Spencer tries desperately not to be hurt. It’s a practical obligation, after all, and a reasonable excuse, but it’s hard not to feel foolish after being rejected. “Of course. I apologize.” 

“Don’t,” Derek protests. “Does the offer expire? I get off at ten.”

Glancing back down at the sparkling water, Spencer smiles. “I’ll see you then.”

* * *

They have sex that same night. 

As promised, Derek Morgan knocks on the pool house door fifteen minutes after ten and asks if he’s still invited in for a drink.

“I’m off duty,” he says, grinning at Spencer with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “The night is all yours, if you’ll take it.”

“Of course,” Spencer answers. 

Forty-five minutes later, Spencer is face-down-ass-up on the mattress that he’s still yet to sleep on, murmuring wanton, desperate pleas for _deeper, harder, more_ into his pillow as Derek takes him from behind. 

Derek twists one of Spencer’s arms behind his back and holds it there as he fucks him, rendering him powerless and open beneath him, just the way Spencer likes it.

“ _Slutty little bitch,_ ” Derek mutters against his neck, leaning over him and encasing him in a feverish, lustful heat.

Spencer just whines in agreement.

“You might be the love of my life, Spencer Reid,” Derek says after they’ve both had their fill and Spencer is lying two feet away from him on the queen-sized mattress, smoking a bubblegum-flavored cigarette. 

“You shouldn’t say things like that if you don’t mean them,” Spencer says. 

“Who says I don’t mean it?”

Spencer rolls his eyes. “I mean, you don’t actually know a _single_ thing about me, Derek.” 

The large ceiling fan spins languidly overhead, and a single droplet of sweat rolls down the left side of Spencer’s face. 

“Then let me know,” Derek protests. “Let me know you.”

“Not yet.”

Derek sighs. “Alright. I know that you’re gorgeous, and you fuck like an angel. That’s _plenty_ for me to love, baby.”

Spencer’s mouth feels swollen. He puts his cigarette out on the nightstand. “Maybe,” he mutters. “Beauty isn’t really…quantifiable, though, so that’s not objective, meaning you don’t really _know_ that so much as…as you _think_ it. Feel it.”

Derek rolls over to lie on top of him. “No,” he says. “You’re _gorgeous_. I know that for a fact.” 

Spencer runs his slender fingers down Derek’s flawless, chiseled chest. “Beauty is not objective,” he insists, unsure whether he really believes it. 

They fuck a second time with Spencer’s knees pressed to his chest and Derek’s fingers in his mouth. Spencer sucks on them like they’ll deliver the elixir of life directly to his tongue. They’re both overwhelmed and sticky and _desperately_ hot, and Derek thrusts into Spencer just sloppily enough that he feels ever-so-slightly smug beneath the layers of pleasurable delirium that fills him to the brim.

Spencer falls asleep immediately after, messy, exhausted and thoroughly indulged. He lets Derek pull him close and pet his hair, partially because he’s far too tired to protest, but primarily because he can’t bear to cut the binding touch between the two of them just yet.

* * *

Spencer wakes up alone in the pool house to the sound of his alarm, sweaty, desperately sore between the legs, and craving raspberry lemonade. 

Derek Morgan has left a note on the nightstand.

_Spencer Reid -_

_I’m sorry to run out on you. Had to go to work. I would have woken you up to say bye but you’re (objectively) so cute when you sleep. Thanks for a great night._

_I want to know you._

_Please._

_1-(323)-***-****._

Spencer rolls his eyes, crumples the note up, and throws it in the trash.

He drinks the lemonade in the fridge beneath the bar (which is _certainly_ for mixing drinks, not chugging out of the bottle in one’s underwear like some sort of uncivilized maniac) and goes to fish an outfit out of his suitcase.

Spencer isn’t sure what to wear that will make a positive impression on everyone he’s going to meet, and he worries about it for such a ridiculous stretch of time that he’s nearly _late_ and doesn’t have time to piece together a decent outfit at all. He winds up dressing himself in denim shorts cut from mom jeans and a faded red Kool Aid man shirt he’d haphazardly cropped to just above his belly button five years ago with safety scissors while drunk in a college dorm.

( _If I can’t make a good impression on everyone,_ he thinks, _I might as well make a bad impression on everyone. Consistency is key._ )

JJ knocks on Spencer’s door at 10 o’clock sharp, five minutes after he finishes tugging his shoes on, just as she had promised. 

“Hey, Spence,” she chirps. She’s very peppy for morning, and is holding a clipboard, both of which make Spencer nervous. “Pool looks nice! Great job. Are you all set?”

Spencer glances back across the room at where he’d thrown Derek Morgan’s note in the trash. 

“Yes,” he says.

* * *

The Hotchner estate is uncomfortably large. 

JJ walks Spencer around the grounds all morning without _once_ circling back to pass something twice, and Spencer becomes more and more certain that the Hotchners own more property than his university had.

She introduces Spencer to Emily, their groundskeeper, who is day drinking excessively because she has been instructed to take the day off and stay out of the way of Jack’s party, and Penelope, a sweet woman dressed like Miss Frizzle of The Magic School Bus who seems to be in almost constant care of the little prince himself. 

“Doesn’t he have a mother?” Spencer whispers as they walk towards what appears to be an apple orchard.

“Haley struggles with some mental health issues,” JJ whispers back.

It’s clear that this will be the end of the discussion.

(Spencer doesn’t mind. He needs no elaboration on the tribulations of mothers with mental health issues.)

JJ shows Spencer a few points of interest—the “cupid fountain,” which is _enormous_ and made of marble, a reflecting pool in front of the Manor (which Spencer does _not_ have to clean), a vegetable garden (“That’s a Penelope project,” JJ explains. “She and Jack work on it.”), and a small set of condominiums where the Hotchners’ employees live.

They’re heading back to the pool house, and JJ is promising to take Spencer up to the Manor tomorrow once the party is over (“To meet Dave,” she says), when they bump into none other than Derek Morgan, who is standing on the steps of the security post looking bored out of his mind.

“Oh, hey!” JJ gasps. “Hey, I’ve got a new hire for you!”

Derek looks over at them, and Spencer looks down at his feet, so that he won’t have to look Derek in the eyes. 

“I knew there was someone else I wanted you to meet,” JJ continues. “Spencer, this is Derek Morgan, head of security. Uh, Derek, this is Spencer Reid. He’s working at the pool house this summer.” 

Derek smiles and holds out his hand. “Hey. Nice to meet you, Spencer.” 

Spencer begrudgingly shakes his hand. 

He doesn’t like handshakes, but he’d had his mouth on Derek’s genitalia about six hours ago, so it seems a bit silly to not want to touch his palm. 

Derek flashes Spencer a toothy grin. “I’m in great ass-kicking shape,” he promises, dropping his voice. “So give me a call if you ever need someone to kick your ass.” 

It reads as a simple joke, but Spencer understands what he’s trying to get across.

 _The note_.

He swallows. “Okay.” 

“Yes,” JJ interrupts. “You can call _any_ of us if you need anything. We’re all friends here! Uh, except for the Hotchners, of course. It’s a really great working environment. We’re like a happy little work family, so nothing _inappropriate_ really ever happens here. _Right_ , Derek?” 

The accusatory tone of JJ’s voice doesn’t sit well in Spencer’s stomach. He wonders if Derek has had a work affair before, and he finds that he’s somewhat averse to the idea. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Derek promises, rolling his eyes and releasing his grip on Spencer’s hand.

“Right. Good. Glad we can agree on that. Spence, let’s get you back—we need the swim-up bar set up by one for the party.” 

* * *

The party is every bit as lavish and ridiculous as Spencer had expected.

Spencer’s never liked parties, and he’s never cared for showy displays of extravagant wealth, so he avoids the party once his role at the swim-up bar is done, but it’s impossible to miss the ice sculpture and fire-throwers being toted onto the lawn.

He sits in his bedroom for a while and listens to the commotion outside, trying to decipher what’s going on, and eventually decides that he simply doesn’t care very much and slips out the back door of the pool house to try to amuse himself elsewhere.

With all of the guests at the pool and in the gardens, the Manor is dark, and Spencer sits on its front steps, lights a bubblegum-flavored cigarette between his lips, and looks down at the estate.

He imagines, for a moment, that all of this is his. That he lives here, _truly_ , and the grounds are his to do what he wishes with. 

He wonders what he would do with this much money. “Mom,” he mutters. “Grad school.” 

He’s so lost in these far-fetched, childish thoughts that he doesn’t register the Manor’s door opening behind him and flooding the front steps with light until it’s too late.

“Spencer?” 

Spencer jumps out of his skin and turns around quickly enough to break his spine. 

He recognizes the man looking down at him only from pictures taken in a sect of society with which Spencer has never so much as brushed— _until now_.

His heart nearly stops. “Oh my g—Mr. Hotchner. Hi. I’m—I’m so sorry, sir. I didn’t—I wasn’t—”

Hotchner interrupts him. “I was at the party earlier. You’ve done good work so far.

…You look tense.” 

“You…know my name, sir?” Spencer asks. 

Hotchner nods. “You’re making waves.”

Spencer’s blood runs cold. 

_He found out about Derek._

“In my book, that is,” Hotchner continues, and Spencer has to bite back an audible sigh of relief. “What’s someone like you doing in a job like this?” 

_What sort of question is that?_ “I’m...afraid I don’t quite know what you mean, sir.”

Hotchner nods. “You’re young. Extremely intelligent, if JJ’s told me the truth. Beautiful. What are you doing here? What brought you into my life?” 

_Beautiful?_

Spencer swallows and prepares to spit the same lie he always has. “I grew up with…um, fairly little, and I’m hoping to save enough money to…go to graduate school.” He tries to discreetly extinguish his cigarette on the brick beside his shoe.

Aaron stares at him for an unpleasantly long time with a calculating, angry expression that makes him squirm. 

“You’re having money trouble?” He asks after a few beats. “I might be able to help you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to apologize that this is a few weeks behind my update schedule! I've been feeling a little demotivated and have been very busy with getting ready to move out for college. But it's back now!
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please leave some feedback, it means a lot :)

**Author's Note:**

> Still here? 
> 
> Thank you for sticking around!  
> Feedback is my lifeblood (motivates me to write), so if you had any questions/comments/concerns/opinions while reading this, I'd really love to hear them! ❤️


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